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The Robathen's Coin Parts 1 -3

A long time ago I released a short story on drivethrufiction called "The Rabathen's Coin - An Arame Tale" that was meant to be the start of a series staring a mysterious thief named Arame. Well, five years later and I have sold maybe six copies. With that in mind I figured I might as well break it up into two or three parts and post in on the blog.

Thoughts are welcome as I am always interested in what others think of my original works.

I.

The stench of rotten fish, sweat, mildewed wood and the
ocean rose up from the black waters of

the harbor in a visible mist that hung over the free
trade city of Wickend adding to the
already strong reek of human filth and cheap ale. The setting sun,
unable to pierce the vile mist, washed over the crumbling buildings that lined the twisting streets of
the Old District. From open doors and windows came the sounds of life, true life, of men laughing and
boasting, of women flirting and dealing in their trades. To an outsider, the Old District appeared
to be chaos and madness, to the denizens of the place it was another night.

Through the rotten mists and darkness, an outsider named Dalarcites came. Though much of his

body was hidden by a long woolen cloak edged in golden
design it was obvious by his long, hawkishnose and his golden skin that he was a Robathen; a race of priests and scholars. He
was far from thevillas and mansions of the Walled Mount, far from guards
paid to care and streets of well-maintained cobblestone. With the harried pace of a frightened rat,
the Robathen moved through the twilight darkened streets of the Old District. His watery eyes
wide in fear and darted around at every sound as clutched and fidgeted with the two ornate daggers
sheathed under his cloak. He was scared but, like all men of the Walled Mount, he was arrogant and
believed that his power and money would protect him against the trails of the Old District.

As if summoned by Dalarcites'
arrogant thoughts a man, of the large and bullish build of the Numbar, slid from a
shadow-hidden alley. The Robathen gripped
his daggers tighter, his knuckles

white and hot with pain as the decorated hilts bit and
tore his soft palms, and attempted to move past the large man. The Numbar
smiled and pounced on the Dalarcites, the
Numbar's bullish buildhiding a catlike grace and speed. Large hands groped for
the Robathen’s dark woolen cloak, foundeasy purchase in the billowing cloth and threw the Robathen roughly against a wall. A startledsqueal escaped the Robathen
and from the other side of the wall, he could the rough merry-making of the sailors and vagabonds of the Old District. He was
going to die, Dalacrites thought. And as life flickered out of him he would hear the mocking laughter
of the Old District.

“Wa – Wait!” He screamed. “Don’t kill me, please! I don’t
carry much and – and I can give you a

job a well paying one.” Tears streaked down his hot
cheeks as he pleaded with the Numbar. “Iswear by the golden hand of Suzil that I do not lie! I have … I am looking for a thief!”

Hot rotten breath washed over Dalarcites' pleading face. He choked at the smell and quivered

visibly as the Numbar
leaned closer to him and whispered. “Tell me soft
man in your pretty littlecloak, why I should lower myself to working for a
dickless Robathen like yourself?” The Numbar’svoice, as heavily accented as it was, oozed with malice
and hatred. The wayward Robathen trembled and lipped silent
prayers to his far off gods and prepared
to meet his ancestors in the summer fields of the afterlife. “Especially,” continued the Numbar, “when what your cloak alone will buy me
ale and women for a
week.” The stench of the Numbar’s breath
grew and Delarcites felt himself grow dizzy from the stench. The tight grip that kept him
pinned suddenly became slack and weak and after a moment the Robathen
heard his assailant fall heavily to the ground.

Opening his eyes Delarcites
saw a small girl garbed in the aba of the desert dwelling Quetarens before him.
Her long black garment flowed and whipped in the slight breeze as her deep
brown eyes surveyed the Robathen.
"The Old District is not a place for those who have no stomach to
fight." The girl whispered in an exotic musical tenor. She turned
away from the Robathen and started to
walk away. “If you wish to secure the services of a thief,
follow me.” She called back to him.

II.

In days long past, when Wickend
was a gleaming jewel on the coast of the God Rend, a home of

traders, artists, philosophers, and the ideas of kingless
lands and freedom; the building that wouldbecome known in later, darker, times as The Broken
Donkey, was the office of the largest importmerchant in the city. Now, though, generations after the
building was first erected it stood like
abadly aged old man. The walls were cracked, patched over
countless times with everything fromwood to shit; the roof was now nothing more than mouse-ridden
and mold encrusted hay that letmore of the elements in then it kept at bay. Tables of
shoddily nailed driftwood littered the mainroom. Light, what little there was, came from a single
chandelier made of ship rigging and an oldwagon wheel, hung low over the tables, swaying in the feted breeze that came through windows that were little more than holes in the tavern’s walls. The
chandelier's light created deep, shadows, that gave the illusion that ghosts and wraiths drank and
fought alongside thief and vagabond.

Women, wearing little more than thin linen slips, slid
through the crowded tavern with a grace

often only seen in the great cats of the north, and like
the cats of those cold mountains, they hunted their prey with a dangerous beauty that would put even
the most careful man on edge. Men from
all the nations of the known world occupied the room,
laughing, drinking, boasting of great deeds, of past wars, and of the mind numbing pleasures that they
could offer to the huntresses of the tavern.

The Quetaren girl moved through the entryway of the
Broken Donkey. The Robathen, who had

stayed close to the girl until this point, came to a stop
his eyes growing wide at the scene before him. He lowered his hand to his dagger, afraid that the girl
had tricked him. The girl, however, did not seem to notice the Robathen
as she twisted and dodged her way to a dark corner of the bar.

"Move."

A great dark hand, the size of a man's head, gripped the
Robathen's shoulder and flung him further into the tavern. Dalarcites
stumbled into the tavern, and unable to control his flight found himself colliding with one of the scantily clad
huntresses in the midst of her work. Together the two fell to the ground, and even through the laughter and the
flirting, the boasting and ding of mugs
on tables, the sound of a spilling coin purse was heard by
all. The Robathen was still dazed from
the push and did not notice the small tight circle forming
around him as the girl, for on closer inspection she could be no older than fourteen, untangled her limbs
from his and stumbled back to her feet. The Robathen
started to stand, grimacing as various bruises and scrapes he suffered during
his journey through the Old District rebelled against him in sudden scratchy fire. As he stumbled to his feet large meaty hands engulfed his arms and with painful
tightness brought him up to the tips of his sandals. He had just enough time to regain the entirety
of his senses to be aware of something

moving towards him fast. Pain flared from his face as a
many ringed fist slammed against his cheek,a moment later another fist drove him from his feet as it
impacted with his soft belly.

“Try to steal from me, you Robathen cunt!” Spit the man who had been flirting with the girl Dalarcites collided
into. “Think you Mount bastards can come down here and steal from us?!” Another fist connected with his face; a strange, sickly
ringing filled his ears, drowning out the cheers

nd laughter that assaulted him from the gathered crowd.

The ringing in his ears was so loud, the pain in his body
so sharp, that it took him a long time to

realize that the beating had stopped, that the cheers and
laughter from the gathered mass of thieves and vagabonds had ceased. He opened his swollen eyes,
whimpering a little as salty blood dripped into them and burned. The crowd in front of him was
parting, allowing the Quetaren girl to move past them.

“Tell me,” she spoke, her voice soft and singing,
lovingly caressing words foreign to the tongues of

the Quetarens. “Are all men of Numbar as addle brained as you?”

The Numbar, the
second that night to attempt to kill Dalarcites,
sprang forward to grab the small

Quetaren. The girl slid backwards
with cat like agility and was suddenly
standing next to Dalarcites,

her dagger against the throat of one of the men holding
him. “Any person with sight can see,” theQuetaren continued, “that it was yon whore, and not this man, who was freeing you of your coin.”She laughed, a sound born of crystals and light. “I am
sure if every man, and woman, whom the girlflirted with tonight checked themselves they’d notice
that they too were lighter than when theyentered.”

The Robathen felt
himself falling to the dirty floor as the men who held him, paranoid from long

years of working their dark trades, followed the Quetaren’s advice. The silence created by the
smallgirl’s appearance vanished, replaced by the gasps and
curses of the collected tavern patrons.Attention turned away from the soft Robathen to the young whore who had robbed
them. The small Quetaren girl lifted the Dalarcites' limply hanging arm, an arm that
felt numb and heavy to its owner, and led him to the dark corner of the
tavern.

“Tell me, Robathen,”
The Quetaren whispered as she sat. “Who are you and whatjob is so important you would risk yourself in the Old District?”

“I am Dalarcites,
an importer of … exotic wares.” He looked away from the beautiful eyed Quetaren for a moment and once more took in his dim and
dank surroundings. “I heard from one of the men I deal with that the best thieves in Wickend can be found in the Old District.” He
sighed as he looked up back at the Quetaren, the hopelessness on
his face clear even through it ruin, “but so far all I have found is thugs and brutes.”

The girl nodded. “Your friend would be right,” she said,
a touch of pride in her musical voice. “The best thieves do frequent the Old District, but they
are not easy to find. Why have you come, Dalarcites, to
secure the services of a thief?

Dalarcites looked
at his savior with pleading eyes. “Something valuable to my family was lost to

me in a rigged game of chance.” He started his voice
growing hard. “It was an ancient coin of blackmetal, like nothing seen the Western Kingdoms, and nearly
cold to the touch. The coin had broughtluck to my family for ages, and now ...” he looked down,
his face darkening in shame. “I have lostthree ships full of cargo to storms since the coin was
taken, and those that do make it to harbor …” he trailed off lost in violent memories of his recent black
luck. After a long moment, he spoke again, his voice far more steady than even he would have given
himself credit. “I can pay enough gold so that whoever this thief may be he can have his own villa
behind the walls of the Mount.”

The Quetaren girl looked at him, brown eyes smiling out
at him from under her veiled face.

“What need do I, one who comes and goes from the Mount as
she pleases, in that much coin? In thekind of imprisonment?” She stood, and despite her
diminutive height, she appeared larger thanbefore, something more akin to the stalkers of the
jungles then to the desert rats her mysterious people were commonly compared to. “My price,” she spoke at
length, “Will be generous, but not as steep as some here would charge you.”

“How will I know you have done it?” He asked suddenly.
“How can I be sure you won’t just promise me and leave?”

The gaze she gave him was hard and piercing, stripping away
at him like the sand winds of her

legendary home. “Remember me Robathen. Remember me and know that Arame of Quetar alwayskeeps her word.” She moved away with a silken fluidity.
“And you will know the deed is donewhen I stand next to your bed, the coin in my hand.”

Arcane Gauntlets are small devices of leather and copper fitted to the wearer's primary hand and feature a small, thin gem imbued with pure arcane energies affixed to the palm. As a standard action the wearer of an Arcane Gauntlet may release its energies up to four times in a single encounter safely, and up to eight times if the wearer is willing to endure the burning residual heat from sustained use of the device. If an Arcane Gauntlet is used to its maximum effect (eight times) it is inoperable until such a time as its wearer takes a long rest. Arcane Gauntlet- Rare Magical Item - Requires Atunement - Ranged Magical Weapon - Range 60/120ft - One Target, Hit 6 (1d6 + 2) Arcane Damage - Special After 4 uses the Gauntlet inflicts 2 Arcane damage on its wearer during every use in an encounter, on the 8th such use the wearer incurs 1d6 damage from the gauntlet's use.